The present invention is directed toward a dispenser and more particularly toward a dispenser for dispensing granular or particulate material such as sugar, coffee, detergent or the like and for other fluent materials such as liquids.
Dispensers for dispensing measured amounts of such materials and which are of the same general class to which the present invention is directed have been proposed in the past. Such devices are normally mounted in or directly below a container for the fluent material and include an outer housing having an opening therein through which the fluid material enters an inner tubular member having a pair of opposed openings one of which coincides with the opening in the outer member. The inner member may be moved out of the housing to a point where its second opening is exposed so that the fluent material therein is dispensed.
Examples of such prior art dispensers are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 795,676; 1,999,624; 2,242,576 and 2,553,509. All of such devices are deficient, however, since they all lack a means for positively preventing the flow of fluent material from the container into the dispenser when the dispenser is in operation. As a result, exact measured amounts cannot be dispensed.
Dispensing devices have also been proposed in the past which are designed to close the opening between the supply chamber and the dispenser before the material is discharged. Examples of these are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,134,725 and 4,166,487. However, to the best of Applicant's knowledge, no one has ever attempted to utilize such a closure feature with the type of dispenser to which the present invention is directed. There is, however, a need for such an improvement in these dispensers.